Kat's new pet
by impulse87
Summary: Rumors about Kat's newest pet causes turmoil in her relationship with Doggie Cruger. CrugerKat
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Power Rangers, The Disney Corporation or anything related to the two. No money has been made off of this story.

Kat's New Pet

"You got a what?" asks Boom slightly surprised. Several parts of the young male's face was covered in black ash, his hair was a lot messier than usual. Kat's lab was now a mess due to an explosion caused by Boom's newest experiment, another failed invention, a machine that didn't really seem to resemble anything nor did it have a purpose of any sort other than to blow up almost immediately after being plugged in. As a result of the explosion the entire room now smelled of smoke and charred metal. Some of the white walls had been burnt black completely, but Kat didn't mind after all, Cruger would probably get some misbehaving cadet to clean it up with a toothbrush as punishment for breaking one of the academy's many rules.

"I got a dog." Replies Kat in a slightly annoyed tone of voice as she helps Boom clean up his massive mess. "Jeez, just why does everyone keep having that reaction?"

Boom shrugs nonchalantly. "I'm not sure, it's just that I've always thought you were more of a _Kat _person."

Kat was silent for a second before she realized what Boom was talking about.

"Very funny." Says Kat before she turns her attention back to the massive SPD computers, now she was annoyed and she couldn't afford to be annoyed or distracted, after all this was SPD a place of work and professionalism not a place to converse about one's personal life, "Get back to work Boom."

Boom scowls softly before he goes back to cleaning up the mess that he made, a result of some new machine that could make toast in half the time it would take a regular toaster. Of course he had rearranged a few wires incorrectly and ended up nearly blowing up Kat's lab. "So what's its name?"

"What's whose name?" replies Kat nonchalantly, she's too busy reading the latest maintenance report on the Delta runners. Somehow Sky had managed to get two very large pieces of gum stuck inside of the gyros of his copter, and Jack's zord needed new wheels…..again.

"Your dog's?" says Boom as he picks up several slightly charred pieces of scrape metal and tossed them into a nearby recycling bin. Kat turned to Boom slightly embarrassed about the name of her dog. "Kat?"

"She got a what!" echoes Cruger in disbelief in the command center portion of the SPD academy, under the strict supervision of Commander Anubis "Doggie" Cruger and his team of Power Rangers, young promising individuals were trained to become the ultimate crime fighting force in the Galaxy, Space Patrol Delta, better known as SPD to criminals and civilians alike.

"A dog." Repeats Jack, "Even the cadets know by now, seriously commander you should know this, it's important for the Commander to know the rumors circulating the academy…."

Cruger gives Jack a long angry stare.

"….and catching criminals and saving the world, those things are also very important, probably more important actually." Says Jack quickly as he turns to leave.

"What'd she name her dog? Asks Cruger, Jack froze in his steps; the commander almost immediately sensed his hesitance. "Jack…"

Jack slowly turned around. "Well, that's the other big rumor going around, she kind of happened to name her dog…………"

"……..Kruger." Replies Kat casually,

"What was that now?" asks Boom, not believing what he had just heard.

"His name is Kruger." Repeats Kat a tad bit annoyed.

"Like as in Commander Anubis 'Doggie' Cruger?" asks Boom.

"No." says Kat, a beat, "My Kruger is spelled with a K."

Boom raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "And that makes all the difference? I sure hope the commander doesn't find out about this."

"Mmmhmmm." Replies Kat nonchalantly before the weight of his words suddenly sank in without warning. "Wait a minute, what's so bad about Commander Cruger finding out about my dog?"

"Oh, it's not the dog." Says Boom, as he grabs a towel and wipes his face, wiping away all of the ash and tiny bits of metal. Boom always kept a fresh clean towel in Kat's lab in case one of his experiments goes horribly wrong, which happens often, "It's the name of the dog and you."

"What are you talking about!" asks Kat incredulously.

"Oh c'mon, even the freshman cadets know about the sexual tension between you and the commander!" says Boom,

"Sexual tension!"

"Oh yeah, whenever you two argue there's this sort of sexual electrical chemistry emanating from the two of you. It's amazing really. I mean three fourth's of the academy knows that you're the only one here with balls big enough to challenge the Commander's decisions." Replies Boom, "and you're a woman meaning that you had to grow those balls, I'm sure the Commander admires you for having such guts to go with your brains."

If all of reality had suddenly turned into a cartoon of some sort Kat's entire jaw would have probably dropped to the floor. But it wasn't and Boom had absolutely no indicator of how uncomfortable this conversation was making Kat and so without any shamehe continued.

"And my god, your relationship with Commander Cruger happens to be very popular lunchroom talk down in the cafeteria." Says Boom completely oblivious to the unbelievable discomfort that Kat was currently experiencing, "People are constantly debating on whether or not it's your um….physical appearances, high ranking positions and that pesky little rule about no dating, are the only things stopping you two from hooking up."

The room was silent for a moment, the awkwardness was obvious now even to Boom, a pager suddenly goes off, and Boom quickly takes advantage of the opportunity. "Uh yeah, I promised I'd meet Bridge in the Cafeteria, we're planning to discuss schematics for the next generation toaster/oven/microwave. So….I'll see you later!"

Boom leaves the room in a hurry, leaving behind a very stunned Katherine Manx, taking a moment to clear her head she forms a V with her middle finger and pointer finger, before she lifts the two fingers up to lips. "Me……and him?" she wonders. "Is that even….possible?"

Kat knew, better than anyone else, that Cruger had been devastated by the death of his wife, but that was over 20 years ago, more than enough time for one to recover from such a devastating loss. But Kat still didn't want to risk her friendship, how would a relationship like that even work out? Maybe the only reason why it wouldn't work out was because neither party was willing to try. After all one of the most important parts of a relationship is wanting to make the relationship happen.

Feeling hungry and seeing that it was nearly two o' clock, Kat decided to head down to the cafeteria for lunch. Taking a seat at her usual spot, Kat was about to begin eating when a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

After Boom had spilled to beans about the supposed sexual tension between the commander and herself, Kat had suddenly become much more aware of the many different conversations being held in the academy's cafeteria. Being one of the last few Felenians left in the universe, Kat possesed senses far greater than those belonging to any human, amazingly her ears could pick up even the sound of a pin being dropped inside of a crowded room.

Of course no one other than Cruger knew about this, Kat preferred to keep her personal life secret. For now Kat wasn't focused on her lunch which consisted of a tuna sandwich, a cookie, and a glass of cold milk, instead her eyes were closed and her ears were trying their best to listen in on a conversation. She wanted to confirm for herself on whether or not the supposed sexual tension between her and the commander was a hot topic of discussion in the cafeteria. Kat's ears perked up and moved back slightly as she listened into one particular conversation.

"_What, so the two really aren't married?" _Judging

"_Nope, they're not even sleeping with each other." _

"_But I see the way he looks at her." _

NOW Kat was interested, her lunch had been forgotten completely. Judging from the distance of their voices they were about twenty meters away, close to the door.

"_Yeah, so?" _

"_Well I also the way she looks at him when she thinks nobody's looking, especially him." _

Kat's breathing and suddenly become very aware of her surroundings, it suddenly seemed like **everyone** in the cafeteria was talking about her and the commander. Could it be? Does the commander have feelings for her? Did she have feelings for the commander!

"_I heard he bought her a freakin engagement ring." _

"_What! No way." _

"_Yeah, it's like a billion karats or something." _

"_Right…" _

Kat suddenly felt the need for some fresh air, her lunch was quickly abandoned as she hurried out of the cafeteria, walking unnoticed past the cadets she was eavesdropping on in the process. She walked with incredible speed and grace, figure hugging brown dress flowing behind her as she walked past the talking cadets, cadets who were oblivious to her presence.

"I still can't believe that Sky and Syd aren't an item." Says one Cadet, his friends nod in agreement.

Kat hurried through the halls of the academy, quickly passing by Jack and the rest of the B-squad without even saying hello, leaving behind a very stunned B-squad.

"What's her problem?" asks Jack.

The others shrugged.

Kat quickly reached the lobby of SPD academy, she was desperate for fresh air, so desperate that she forgot to give her daily greeting to Lou, the 60-year-old SPD receptionist. Kat quickly pushed her way through the crowd and out of the academy.

"Excuse me, watch where you're going!" says an important looking lady with a British accent.

Kat turns her head back to apologize. "Sorry, sorry. Rough day." She says, while continuing to speed walk. She turns around only to crash face first into a very tall stranger wearing a leather trench coat.

"Oh sorry." She says, she looks up to see that it's Commander Cruger. "Oh…"

"We need to talk." He says.

_To be continued. _

A/N: I'm baacccckkkk, it's been a while, but I'm finally back writing fanfiction, to apologize I've started two stories, this one and a much more serious version of the legendary episode Forever Red, this time I'll include rangers up to mystic force, so be sure to check it out.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Power Rangers, Super Sentai, or anything related to the two franchises. No money was made off of this story.

Kat's New Pet

"We need to talk." Says Cruger sternly to Kat, Kat suddenly felt her blood turn to ice, why was she suddenly so scared? It was just Cruger, a close friend that she had known for decades. "Would you like to join me for a walk?"

Kat nodded nervously.

A walk was actually what Kat had needed all along, something that would distract her from all the stress that she was currently going through, work and the current rumor that she and Cruger may possibly be romantically interested in each other. It felt great to be able to escape from all those stresses even if it was just for small amount of time.

Of course one of the problems Kat was currently facing happened to involve Commander Cruger, so her taking a walk with him wasn't really helping her THAT much. But to be honest it was a perfect day for taking a walk. The sun was out, shining its light over the entire city, birds were singing, the grass was green and nearly every single family in the city had decided to have a picnic in the park that Kat and Cruger were walking through.

But that didn't seem to change the fact Kat had learned less than an hour ago that at least half, if not all, of SPD's Earth branch believed that the Commander and her had a large amount of sexual tension between each other.

"So, rumor has it that you got yourself a pet of some sort." Says Cruger

"Yeah." She replies,

"I've also heard that your new pet happens to be a dog."

"Uh-huh." Kat could suddenly feel her heart kick itself into overdrive.

"So….what's its name?" asks Cruger,

"Um…."

"His name?" stutters Kat nervously as she nervously played with her hands, a habit which showed her nervousness. Her normally calm persona is missing from the current conversation. "Why would you want to know the name of my dog?"

"Just curious." Replies Cruger nonchalantly. He seems to be oblivious to Kat's obvious discomfort, the signs were really obvious, her slight squirming

Kat, who was a highly trained psychologist, couldn't tell whether or not Cruger was messing with her from his body language. "Oh, uh ok."

"Hey look out!!" shouts a kid,

Kat quickly turns her head to face the kid only to see a green Frisbee fly towards her face at an alarming rate of speed. Despite Kat's cat like reflexes and superhuman speed, she barely had time to blink before……….WHACK!!!

Kat went down like a sack of bricks.

_Is this a dream...or is it a memory. Where am I? _

Kat knew that what she was experiencing right now wasn't a real, it couldn't be real. It felt more like a dream or possibly even a memory. But it felt so real, she was being carried in his arms, Cruger's arms being carried towards the other five SPD rangers. She could still remember how it felt, the warmth of his body mixed with the warmth of her body, she remembered that that was the first time, in a long, she felt safe.

_Oh right I'm in Cruger's arms, why is it that I feel so safe here? Here out of all places?_

"_Kat, let's go home." _

"_Yeah, let's." _

Suddenly the ground opened up between them, almost as if the Earth was trying to swallow them whole. Cruger quickly reacts by quickly throwing Kat towards the rangers saving her but dooming himself in the process.

"_NOOOOO!!!" She screamed as Cruger plunged to his doom her hand reaching out into nothingness. _

"NOOOOOO!!!!" Kat woke up screaming and covered in sweat, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up her heartbeat was fast, her nails had grown out into sharp curved talons and her eyes had suddenly gone from green to a much brighter tone of amber, all this were habits that most of her race exhibited whenever they were scared or angry.

Taking a second to calm down and relax, causing her breathing to go back to normal, her talons slowly retracted into her fingers turning back into nails, her amber eyes returned to their normal green. Kat quickly scans the area around her trying to best to understand just what was going on. The place seemed to be familiar, judging from the architectural design of the building along with the paint scheme she was inside of SPD, but she had never seen such a room before. Just where was she?

"Where am I?" she wonders.

"Where else but SPD headquarters." Says a voice from the door, Kat turned towards the door in alarm.

It turned out to be Boom, Kat relaxed.

"How are you?" he asks in a slightly concerned tone of voice.

"What is this?" she asked curiously.

"This is Commander Cruger's secret quarters, a room hidden behind his office, only a few individuals know about this room, it used to only be Cruger but he dragged me along so I could make sure that you didn't get a concussion." Says Boom, "You got hit in the face by a Frisbee remember?"

"Y-yeah." Replies Kat as she touches her forehead, now noticing that it was bandaged.

"Listen, I gotta take off, I promised a friend that I would help her fix her toaster, but I'm also planning to convert it into a microwave, a television, and a dishwasher all in one." Says Boom excitedly. "Are you sure you're going to be ok?"

"I'll be fine." Says Kat

Kat looked around the room, it wasn't anything special, just a dark little room with a small bed, a work desk, along with a computer and lamp. But like any normal cat, Kat's eyes were more accustomed to the dark, she could easily see the little details of the room, the thin cracks in the room's paint job, the dust buildup in the corners of the room, but the one thing that caught her eye was a small picture frame, not many people would have noticed the finely crafted silver picture frame much less the picture inside of the frame.

It was a relatively old picture, it didn't even move like current photos. It was a picture of him, long before he became a high ranking SPD officer, long before she became head of Earth's SPD research and development department. Cruger was wearing his standard SPD cadet, she herself was wearing a simple gray blouse along a white lab coat. Her hair was much longer back then. Anyone could tell from the slightly yellow edges that the photo had to be at least over 30 years old.

"I can't believe he kept it after all these years…." She says as she picks it up, tears welling up in her eyes.

Wet tears started to drip down onto the picture frame.

Kat found herself wandering the near empty SPD headquarters, most of the day workers had gone home for the day leaving mostly cadets, officers, and the rangers doing paper work and resting until they were needed. "Cruger's probably gone home for today as well." She says to herself.

After about half an hour of mindless wandering along with several pondering looks from several very confused and very curious interns, cadets and other workers at SPD, all this was ignored by Kat who continued to wander through the building until she found herself outside of SPD headquarters, for such a big and active city it was awfully dark, so dark that she could see the sky's yellow moon with ease.

Kat stared for a while, mesmerized by the moon's glow.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" says a familiar voice, Kat instantly recognized the voice as Doggie Cruger, or at least the voice belonged to someone who sounded an awful lot like him, he was a 5'11 human with soft spiky brown hair, slightly tanned white skin, and the bluest eyes Kat had ever seen in her life.

"I'm sorry……" says Kat mesmerized, the eyes seemed to draw her in and refuse to let go. "Do I know you?"

"You don't recognize me?" asks the stranger in a slightly hurt tone of voice. "It's me Doggie Cruger."

"Wha?"

Cruger smiled as he looked at the moon, "Unlike Sirius' red moonlight created by the reflection of light from our red sun, Keroberos, Earth's moonlight is created by the reflection of light from earth's yellow sun which mutates my physique when I'm exposed to Earth's moonlight my body turns into that resembling a human's."

"I didn't know that….." says Kat in complete awe.

"It's been so peaceful lately hasn't it?" asks Cruger with a smile, "but it rarely lasts, we should enjoy while we can."

"Yeah we should." Replies Kat, "Do you wanna go watch a movie at the Cineplex?"

Cruger stared at her, almost as if he didn't understand what she was saying. Like she was speaking a different language, and for a second Kat felt that she had made a mistake. It's just that, you're right, you know? I mean I barely get to spend any time with you, with all the new cadets, the paperwork, the zord maintenance, and the crime. Not that I want to spend time with you or not…"

"Kat." Says Cruger loudly, the voice broke Kat's chain of thoughts, "I'd love to go watch a movie with you."

Kat smiled brightly.

"The cineplex isn't too far off from here. Would you like to walk?" asks Cruger, he starts down the street. Since he's known Kat for so long, he already knew what her answer would be. Sure enough Kat quickly caught up with Cruger, the night sky was filled with stars despite the bright lights which were emitting from the towering buildings. Maybe it was the lights and sounds of the city, maybe it was her fear of being left alone, but for some reason Kat was feeling very brave.

Brave enough to wrap her arm around Cruger's arm and rest her head on his shoulder. Cruger didn't seem to mind. Maybe she'll tell him her feelings someday, and maybe he'll reciprocate and she'll get everything she's ever wanted. But for now, she'll savor the warmth of his arms, and the comfort she felt whenever she's with him. Most importantly she'll enjoy this rare moment of peace, after all they rarely  
come.

FIN

A/N: Well that's it, I hope you enjoyed this story. Leave a review if you liked it. I had a hard time trying to figure out how to end this story...-.-


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